Baughman claims privacy for e-mails
Kootenai County’s chief deputy prosecutor is claiming a “privacy interest” in the vast majority of e-mails he exchanged with female colleagues on his county computer, including some sexually explicit e-mails that were widely circulated among county employees.
A log the county released Wednesday revealed that 65 percent of e-mails Rick Baughman sent and received in October had nothing to do with work, even as his office was preparing for the triple-murder trial of Joseph Edward Duncan.
Baughman has objected to the release of hundreds of e-mails, according to county attorneys who say he is exercising his constitutional right to privacy. The log provided by the county shows e-mails Baughman doesn’t want released “appear not to relate to the conduct or administration of the public’s business.”
Among e-mails sent by county computer but not considered the public’s business: Nude photos, a shot of a toddler with his genitals hanging into a cereal bowl, video of a sex act between a man and a donkey, and another of an obese woman having sex with someone in a shark outfit.
Those e-mails were exchanged between Baughman and former victims advocate Laura Bonneville, who accused Baughman of sexual harassment after quitting her job with the prosecutor’s office. The county initially released 10 of 50 e-mails exchanged between the two, but later inadvertently released all of the e-mails to The Spokesman-Review.
Former legal secretary Kathy Adams quit her job with the county in October and leveled allegations of sexual harassment against Baughman during her exit interview with the county’s human resources department.
Only 1 percent – 4 pages of a total 289 pages – of the e-mails Adams and Baughman exchanged in a year’s time were released by the county. The rest, according to the log, are private and not business related.
Baughman exchanged 218 e-mails with legal secretary Kim Lochrie in the past 12 months. He has objected to the release of 98 percent of those e-mails. Lochrie could not immediately be reached for comment.
According to records requested by The Spokesman-Review, neither Adams nor Lochrie worked directly with Baughman, and both were assigned to other attorneys in the office.
Adams hasn’t returned repeated calls seeking comment, and Bonneville has declined interviews. Baughman’s attorney, John Redal, did not return a call seeking comment.
Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday.
The unedited e-mails between Bonneville and Baughman were in a “deleted items” folder on a compact disc the county provided to The Spokesman-Review in response to a request for e-mails between Adams and Magistrate Barry Watson.
Neither Adams nor Watson objected to the release of those e-mails, which the newspaper requested based on an anonymous tip. No inappropriate e-mails between Watson and Adams were found on the disc.
The deleted items folder, however, contained the 50 e-mails between Baughman and Bonneville. Though Baughman sent several lewd e-mails to Bonneville, she also sent him sexually explicit e-mails.
Some of the e-mails came to Bonneville from other county employees, including a number of employees of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department. Baughman forwarded some of the illicit e-mails to other female employees in the prosecutor’s office, including Adams.
The county, which demanded the newspaper return the disc with e-mails between Baughman and Bonneville, has not explained how they ended up on the disc, or in the “deleted items” folder.
In an interview last week, county attorney Erika Grubbs said the county was not deleting any e-mails. Even e-mails in a deleted items folder would remain on the county’s server, she said.
Grubbs did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday.
Baughman asserted the “privacy interest” in his e-mails citing a case pending before the Idaho Supreme Court in which the newspaper sued to obtain e-mails between Douglas and former employee Marina Kalani, with whom Douglas is alleged to have had an affair.
Both Kalani and Douglas deny any improper relationship existed.
District Judge John R. Stegner, of Lewiston, rejected arguments by Douglas and Kalani that releasing the messages would infringe on their right to privacy and that the contents of the messages also were protected as employee records.
The release of the e-mails was postponed after Kalani and Douglas appealed to the Idaho Supreme Court. Douglas later dropped his appeal.
At the time, he maintained that he fervently believes “personal communications” should be kept private, but he added in a prepared statement: “I don’t believe the victory I might achieve by fighting the battle further is worth prolonging the controversy and personal turmoil.”
The Supreme Court may rule on the case in spring 2007.